


obligatory herding cats reference

by hellbeast



Series: hey, fashion disaster [3]
Category: Bleach, Kill la Kill (Anime & Manga)
Genre: A Girl and Her Kamui, Barely Canon Compliant, Chad and Mako bond over their ridiculous significant others, F/F, Gen, Grimmjow just fuckin Suffers™, Ichigo and Ryuuko bond over Shounen Protagonist Drama™, M/M, Summer Roadtrip Fun, Summer Roadtrip Hell?, The Infamous Herding Cats Fic, Urahara and Mikisugi bond over causing enough secondhand embarrassment to power a small nation, but like. it's a trip to monster limbo.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-20 15:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20677607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellbeast/pseuds/hellbeast
Summary: The whole thing is, of course,absolutelyKisuke’s fault.[ryuuko makes new friends, goes to new places and utterly clowns even more of canon]





	obligatory herding cats reference

The whole thing is, of course, _absolutely_ Kisuke’s fault.

It’s late afternoon, the sun dipping progressively lower in the sky, casting a deep pink-red shadow over Honnou. Ryuuko spins, deft on her feet, and brings Senketsu down in a flash of steel and tassel. The hollow—shaped like the abstraction of a dog—groans and burst into shards of light and soulstuff.

“Feh,” Ryuuko grins, resting one of the dao blades against her shoulder like a baseball bat. Purifying hollows has always been easy business, but ever since the whole fiasco with that Aizen guy, Ryuuko has taken to seriously appreciating how mellow her life is. Afterlife. Whatever.

The point is, she doesn’t have to put up with those Soul Society yokels and hollows aren’t _nearly_ as much of a pain in the ass as Satsuki’s Goku uniforms had been. She almost wishes for an actual challenge—

“Ho?” Senketsu hums, his voice breaking the quiet, pulling Ryuuko from her idle musing. The dao blades hum with him, buzzing against Ryuuko’s skin like the skim of a faint touch. “What’s that?”

“What’s _wha_—?” Ryuuko starts to ask, barely turning in time to catch the way that the sky ripples. It’s not quite like that weird _snap_ that fell over Karakura back when she had been trying to track down Kisuke. It’s more of a bulge, like something is trying to burrow its way _out_ of the sky. There’s a thick, wet tearing sound and the sky starts to bleed black, a hole torn into the soft pink light.

From that black blood, a hand claws its way out.

Broad palms with long fingers and scars laid light against sun-warmed skin clap down on the edges of the sky, as though it’s a flat surface, and _pull_. A body heaves itself into existence… and falls at Ryuuko’s feet.

Ryuuko can admit that she freaks out a little.

"What the fuck. What the fuck just happened, Senketsu?"

"This is quite strange."

"_Strange_? This is more than just _strange_—"

It's a warranted freak out. She's put up with a lot of weird shit in the last year, not least of which is the fact that she's technically dead. And also, that she was never human to begin with. That was fun to discover.

"Okay," Ryuuko says calmingly, as though she's not the only one freaking out. "Okay, it's fine. We can fix this. We just need—"

Kisuke. They need a Kisuke. Kisuke will know what to do, if he knows what's good for him.

On the ground, the body twitches.

"Please don't be a zombie," Ryuuko mutters under her breath as she carefully maneuvers the body over her shoulders in a fireman's carry. "This dress is new and if I get blood all over it because I gotta kill some zombie asshole, I'm gonna be pissed."

The body groans. More exasperated than zombie, she thinks. That's something. Small mercies, or whatever.

The body—or person, if people can suddenly rip holes in the sky and come crawling out like some kind of chest-bursting alien monster—is oddly light for their build. Kisuke is the same way, though, so it might be a dead people thing—

Okay. Right. Kisuke.

"Ryuuko-sama!"

Or not.

Ira fairly throws himself before her, staring down at her face with plain concern.

"Ryuuko-sama, are you harmed?"

“… Ira, what are you even doing here?"

"Satsuki-sama bid that I see you to safety. She said that you had been gone for an unusual amount of time."

Ever since Ryuuko had woken up from dying, Satsuki's been worse than even the most stringent helicopter mom. She once barged in on Ryuuko in the bathroom because she'd been "gone too long" and "the last time I left you on your own, you went and got your fool ass killed", as though Satsuki herself had not personally tried to kill that very same fool ass on more than one occasion.

Sisterhood is strange, is what Ryuuko’s getting at.

“Everything’s fine,” Ryuuko says, as though it’s not a bold-faced lie.

The body chooses that moment to groan, because of course it does.

“Ryuuko-sama,” Ira starts, and he has this _Look™ _on his face that Ryuuko honestly does not want to deal with.

“Everything’s _fine_,” Ryuuko repeats, though she has to raise her voice to be heard over the progressively louder mumbling of the body.

“—th’ fuck—”

“Ryuuko-sama, I believe it best that I accompany you—”

“Ira, seriously, chill, okay?”

“—fuck ‘m I? Who th’ fuck’re you—”

The body starts to shift in her hold, limbs moving clumsily. Ryuuko dumps it on its ass.

“_Th’ fuck—_”

“Ryuuko-sama, please be careful!”

Ryuuko ignores them both. The body-person is propped up on their elbows, baring an impressive amount of scars and a definite motif. Blue hair in eclectic spikes, blue eyes with darker blue marks beneath them. A sword—which _definitely_ makes this a Kisuke problem—with blue hamaki and a blue tsuba. All that’s out of place are two oddities: some kind of animal jawbone attached to their jaw _on the outside_ and a literal, actual hole in their abdomen. Ryuuko can see the sidewalk through it.

“I’m gonna call you Blue,” Ryuuko decides after a moment.

The newly-christened Blue scrunches their face up and bares their teeth, which are definitely pointier than she was expecting. “Who th’ fuck’re you to be namin’ _me_? Already got a name.”

“Yeah, well,” Ryuuko shoots back. “That was before you ruined my day by crawling out of the sky.”

“Motherfucker, I _will_—”

Blue tries to stand up, probably to fight Ryuuko, but only makes it halfway before a very wet, painful rasp pulls itself out of their throat and they fall back down to their knees.

“Fuck,” Blue hisses under their breath, hunched over the _hole_ in their chest, like they’re surprised. Dead people are the _worst_.

“I feel like we should take this to Satsuki,” Ryuuko comments mildly, after a minute of awkward silence where she and Ira pointedly don’t stare.

Blue curses, and hisses and spits and claws, but in short order Ira has them hauled over his shoulder and sedately makes his way towards Honnouji. Ryuuko gets to carry the sword.

This was supposed to be her day _off_, damnit.

* * *

Because no one in Honnou has anything even resembling self-preservation or common fucking sense—Ryuuko herself included—the first thing that Satsuki’s creeps want to do is throw Blue into Inamuta’s lab for ‘testing purposes’.

In very short order, Inamuta no longer has a lab.

Blue is: breathing heavily, bleeding from the forehead, and looking absolutely goddamn feral. Huge machines are rent into jagged, sparking hunks of metal. The light streaming in from what used to be at least three solid floors of cement makes it all look very dramatic. Blue snarls, a sharp rip of noise that human-adjacent vocal chords probably shouldn’t be able to make.

“I,” they pant, chest heaving and hair limp with sweat. One hand on their sword, the other braced against the nearest solid object. “am gonna kill every single _one_ of you motherfu—”

Then they pass out.

* * *

Again, because no one in Honnou is a normal, functional human being, Satsuki dumps Blue in the school infirmary. Blue gets the bed in the corner, which at least has a window, with the divider curtain drawn in a completely useless attempt at privacy. The entire student body saw Ira carrying Blue into the school _and_ out of the wreckage of Inamuta’s former lab.

Mako is thrilled, at least.

“This is so exciting, Ryuuko-chan!” She’s sitting at Blue’s bedside like a dutiful loved one, peeling fruit and carving little sausages into animal shapes. The bentos that Mako makes for Ryuuko are _adorable_.

“I guess?” Ryuuko offers. It _is_ interesting, just because nothing like this has happened before, but it’s also _never happened before_ and Ryuuko’s not entirely sure what she should be doing. She texted Kisuke and is waiting for him to respond—which takes ages because he pecks at the keyboard like a blind old grandma—but the whole situation is just. Bizarre.

Fighting Aizen was easy, because it was just fighting. But Blue fell out of the sky and is angry but also clearly recovering from _something_, and half of the time, their curses and threats seem reflexive more than anything. Ryuuko’s not gonna pick a fight, because Blue hasn’t _done_ anything (if she picked a fight with everyone who threatened or tried to kill her, the town would be a lot less populated).

Destroying Inamuta’s lab must’ve been therapeutic or something, because Blue wakes up, but doesn’t immediately go off the rails. Satsuki shows up to demand answers and only gets mildly cursed out. Satsuki takes this with her usual aplomb and tells Blue to stay in the infirmary or she’ll _make_ them stay. The cursing gets a little less mild. Satsuki raises an unimpressed eyebrow and leaves.

“She’s just like that,” Ryuuko explains, while Blue works their jaw, probably swallowing down a cacophony of swearing.

“I’d swear this was hell,” is Blue’s only response which, admittedly, is fair.

* * *

Urahara Kisuke is not picking up his phone.

Ryuuko has just tried his number for the seventh time and it goes straight to voicemail, the same as it did the previous six times. Her texts remain unread and unanswered. It’s been nearly a week since Blue showed up.

Ryuuko tries the number for the Urahara Shouten. The line is disconnected. She tries Tessai’s number. Disconnected.

She tries one last number, a string of digits that Kisuke had given her after Karakura with strict orders to only call ‘if spacetime itself is rotting’. The line doesn’t even ring; it just makes an ominous deep-throated growl before dropping. She doesn’t dare try a second time.

“Hmm,” Senketsu says. “I suppose there’s not much choice.”

He’s right. He didn’t have to _say_ it, though.

Ryuuko sighs, runs her fingers along Senketsu’s seams for comfort and bites the bullet.

Kurosaki picks up after two rings, like a normal person who doesn’t drop off the grid with no warning. It’s both vindicating and a little anxiety-inducing.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Matoi.” Ryuuko says. “You seen Urahara lately?”

There’s a pause and Ryuuko can hear Kurosaki muttering her name to himself like he’s trying to place it. “Oh, hey,” he replies after a moment, sounding a little confused but amicable enough. “Not recently or anything.”

Ryuuko tamps down on a snarl. Goddamn Urahara Kisuke.

“Look,” Ryuuko sighs and tugs at Senketsu’s hem. “Can you like, check the Shouten or anything? It’s. I mean, it’s not like he _told_ me what to do when feral blue people start pulling themselves out of the sky and shit.”

“… Feral blue people… out of the sky…” Kurosaki parrots dubiously. Before Ryuuko can call him out on his disbelief—she’s not one to just make shit up, you know—he inhales sharply.

“Matoi,” Kurosaki says, _gravely_, voice hitting a low pitch that immediately grabs Ryuuko’s attention. “Where exactly is Honnou, again?”

And that’s the how and the why of Kurosaki Ichigo and Sado Yasutora showing up two days later, duffel bags on the Mankanshoku doorstep.

* * *

It’s not that she has a _problem_ with Kurosaki. It’s just that…. Well.

If Ryuuko hadn’t shown up in Karakura that day, if she hadn’t hunted Kisuke down to tear him a new one for going completely radio silent with no warning, she’s pretty sure that Kisuke would’ve done something monumentally short-sighted to get rid of Aizen. That’s just the kind of person Kisuke is: he gets so wrapped up in the layers of his plans and schemes and machinations or whatever that he doesn’t seem to realize when one good blow would be better than a hundred year long con.

Not that she has opinions, or anything.

And it’s not even an egotistical thing. A lot of things have changed since Urahara waltzed into her life with his ugly ass hat, but even more has remained the same, pulling her life into a strange parallel of Before and After death. Before, they’d only had to worry about Life Fibers and COVERS and Satsuki’s ridiculous Goku uniforms. Before, her scissors had been specially crafted to help her completely demolish her enemies in battle, by severing if not outright destroying Life Fibers. As a zanpakutou, Senketsu is all but _made_ for severing the bonds of reiryouku, tearing them apart and absorbing the ambient reishi left over. The fact that her enemies (that _everyone_) are _also_ composed of reiryouku is… something she tries not to think about too often. Ryuuko was strong before she died, but the fact that her and Senketsu’s abilities in the afterlife are the antithesis to everything has made her something _more_.

The point is, Ryuuko hadn’t defeated Aizen. She hadn’t killed him. She’d unmade him completely, removing him from the cycle of reincarnation all together and cleansing the Hougyouku from existence. And then Senketsu had consumed the remaining energy and smoothly incorporated it into their own reserves. The _idea_ of Aizen pretty much no longer exists.

She knows how that looks, how that sounds. She thinks of the moment she discovered she wasn’t a human at all, but a being of Life Fibers. She remembers the word that had come to mind, without hesitation: Monstrous.

A couple months after the whole showdown with Aizen, Kisuke had told her that there used to be a weapon like her in Seireitei. A blade that was only ever used against the most foul of criminals, because it doled out a fate worse than death, worse than reincarnation, worse than hell or limbo. It had been destroyed, he told her, and there was never even a whisper of it being recreated or rebuilt, not even from the most conservative and traditional of captains.

A weapon. Unfeeling, merciless. It wasn’t exactly a strain to connect the dots there.

Ryuuko—like that blade, the name _Soukyoukou_ whispered under Kisuke’s breath like a bad omen—_**terrifies**_ the Shinigami.

Despite all of that, Kurosaki Ichigo makes her uncomfortable as all hell.

It’s not anything that he’s done, or anything she’s done. She’s barely exchanged more than a couple words with him, all told. It’s just—they’re the _same_.

Kisuke would try to deny it, but Kisuke also wears stripes with stripes, so his opinion isn’t even remotely valid. And Ryuuko might not care about whatever it is the Shinigami are doing, but she’s hardly stupid. She and Kurosaki are the last resorts; the overpowered, impossible aces that Kisuke has tucked up his sleeve, and by that alone, Ryuuko knows so much about Kurosaki, for all that they’ve never even been formally introduced.

It’s disconcerting. Like looking in a funhouse mirror. Like seeing your own eyes on the face of a stranger. Like looking down and not recognizing your own body.

He makes her skin crawl, a little, because she honestly can’t tell where Kisuke’s (no doubt convoluted) plans for Kurosaki end and where his plans for Ryuuko begin.

* * *

If Kurosaki makes her uncomfortable, Sado Yasutora is probably going to become her new best friend.

He's just so... _calm_, which is not something Ryuuko can say of basically any single person she interacts with on a regular basis.

Satsuki, of course, defies all explanation and is also an enormous control freak, on top of being the kind of person who thinks escalating violence is a good answer to any and all problems. Not that Ryuuko disagrees with her about that last bit, but—whatever, that’s not the point.

Ira looks like he should be calm and collected, but his Goku uniform transformation also left him in full-on bondage gear and Ryuuko still can't think about that for too long or it makes her break out in hives. The rest of the Elite Four don't even bear mentioning.

Mikisugi was probably supposed to fulfill the role of wizened mentor, but honestly, he likes flashing his glowing genitals too much for Ryuuko to take him seriously. Kinagase _almost_ fits the bill; he definitely knows how to be serious, but he also takes himself just a little _too_ seriously while also somehow managing to look just as ridiculous as anyone else.

The point is, Sado Yasutora—who politely asks to be called Chad—is almost normal, and Ryuuko is almost beside herself with glee over the fact.

He's also like eight feet tall and sturdy in a way that makes Ira seem small and Ryuuko doesn't even bother to hide her expression as she cranes her head back to stare up at him with stars in her eyes.

_Ryuuko, how could you!_ Senketsu wails, betrayed.

Chad, Ryuuko realizes with a dawning sense of joy, would give _**amazing**_ piggyback rides.

_Ryuuko!_

_Senketsu, he would, you know that he so would. It would be like sitting on top of a mountain._

_I can't believe you would betray me like this._

No more of Mikisugi's Nudist Beach speeches or his weird flashing nipples, Ryuuko reasons, wistful at the mere idea of it. No more of Kinagase’s stupid speeches or equally stupid hair. No more of Ira's **terrifying** gag thing.

_I hope you realize you're missing an important narrative expose between Kurosaki and Satsuki_, Senketsu puts in sourly. Whatever. He's just jealous that he can't give amazing piggyback rides.

"You're my new best friend." Ryuuko whispers, clamping her fingers down over her creeping smile.

Chad looks down at her, and what little of his face she can see looks bewildered. And maybe a little alarmed.

"Hmph!" Senketsu twists on her torso, with a great air of disdain.

Kurosaki must catch the movement from the corner of his eye, because he turns to look at her—pausing mid-sentence, which makes Satsuki's eyebrow twitch, and hadn't Senketsu mentioned something about narrative expo-whatsits?—and scowls. Scowls deeper.

"Did your... clothes just move by themselves?"

Ryuuko frowns back at him.

"Didn't Kisuke tell you? Senketsu is my zanpakutou."

"The... kamui is your zanpakutou?"

Ryuuko deepens her own scowl and cocks her hip out, challenging. "You gotta problem?"

Kurosaki doesn't rise to the bait, though, and some small part of her is glad for it, because on second thought, she really doesn't actually want to fight him. He just stands there, looking angry (his default) and confused (which is new).

"So," he draws out, after a pause. "Was the kamui possessed before it got turned into your zanpakutou? I mean, Geta-Boshi told me that just about anything can be an asuchi, but—"

"Senketsu's isn't possessed, he's just Senketsu." Ryuuko answers, not seeming to realize that this is in no way a clarification.

"The kamui has always been sentient." Satsuki cuts in, tapping her Bakuzan-covered nails along her desk. "He is a being of Life Fiber synchronization."

"Life Fiber?" Chad asks, when Kurosaki seems to be too voiceless from angry confusion to respond.

"Okay, grab a seat, because this is a long and kinda phenomenally stupid story," Ryuuko sighs, and Senketsu sighs with her because he (correctly) gathers that he'll be serving as a demonstration.

* * *

(The concept of sentient clothing seems to have sent Kurosaki into some sort of… downward spiral.

"We can never let Ishida find out about Honnou," he says to Chad, over and over again, every time Ryuuko pauses to take a breath. "Never, Chad."

"Ichigo—“

"_Never_, Chad. **Ever**.” He looks haunted and pale and like he can only imagine all too well what would happen if this Ishida person got their hands on some Life Fibers.

Ryuuko decides to leave that one alone.)

* * *

Upon seeing each other, Blue and Kurosaki have what basically amounts to the same reaction:

“Shit,” Kurosaki says, looking annoyed.

“This is definitely hell,” Blue says, looking like they want to punch Kurosaki in the ribs and also like they want to jump out the window and leave town, Satsuki’s orders be damned.

“I was hoping you were wrong,” Kurosaki grumbles, and it takes Ryuuko a moment to realize that’s vaguely directed at her. Kurosaki pins Blue with a tight, angry look.

“The hell are you even doing here?”

Blue pulls the corner of their mouth up into a sneer. “The fuck would I tell _you_ for, Ku-so-sa-ki?”

Kurosaki’s brow twitches. “That wasn’t even funny the first time, asshole.”

Blue, who seems to be drawing strength from the very act of being an uncooperative shithead—especially to Kurosaki, apparently—grins. “Got a fight out of it, din’t I?”

Ryuuko watches the two of them heckle and pick at each other and then looks up into the faintly exasperated face of Chad. He gives her the same look Ryuuko has when Mako passes an all-you-can-eat establishment. There’s dread, tempered by fondness but dog-piled with please-not-again.

Chad’s sheer… _whatever_ you can call that jumble of emotion has some clear force behind it, because Kurosaki drags a hand through his hair and cuts off whatever needling thing Blue was in the middle of saying.

“Seriously, how did you even get here. Why _here_?”

Blue’s eyes narrow, but after a moment, they scoff and glance to the side. “Everything’s gone to shit in Hueco Mundo.”

A pause.

“And since _somebody_ almost got me killed—”

“It was a fair fight!” Kurosaki protests.

“—by the _single most aggravating_ fucker in the _**entire**_ dimension—”

Mouth open to retort, Kurosaki stops. “… Okay, that’s fair.”

“—it’s not like there’s any point in staying there.”

Blue—he, as it turns out, who Kurosaki then addresses with a name that has a jumble of sharp syllables that make Ryuuko’s head hurt—looks tired but smug, the way cats do after winning an argument. 

“I’m glad you guys are bonding or whatever,” Ryuuko throws out, from her place on the window sill. “But now I have even more questions.”

Namely, what the fuck is a ‘Hueco Mundo’.

Immediately, the smug satisfaction drops in favor of irritation, which seems to be Blue’s default the same way that vaguely aggressive scowling is Kurosaki’s.

“You _and_ your questions can fuck off,” Blue—she can’t remember his actual name, and even if she could there’s no way in hell she’d be able to _say_ it—spits.

Ryuuko shoots the ceiling a look and silently prays to the Life Fiber Goddess for patience.

“How are we supposed to help if you won’t tell us what’s wrong?” she asks.

If anything, Blue gets snarlier. “Who the hell said I needed your help?”

“What, you fell out the sky cuz you _meant_ to?”

Blue scoffs.

“I think you’re just being frustrating cuz you can,” Ryuuko eventually decides.

“He definitely is,” Kurosaki agrees, almost the second the words leave Ryuuko’s mouth.

“You can both fuck all the way off,” is Blue’s response.

Blue then slumps down on the infirmary cot and rolls over, a pillow smashed over his head, which effectively ends the conversation.

Ryuuko thinks that she would probably take it a little more seriously if Mataro didn’t do the exact same thing when trying to avoid waking up for school, but that might just be her.

* * *

Other than those few initial hurdles, Kurosaki and Chad settle in with little fanfare. Kisuke still isn't answering his goddamn phone and Blue is singularly uncooperative, so—for lack of any other solution, and honestly because she’s a little bored—Ryuuko calls Mikisugi.

It's a mistake. It's such a mistake.

“Ryuuko-kun, my marvelous protege!” Mikisugi crows, fingers splayed dramatically at his chest. He holds the extravagant pose like he thinks he’s a Stand User or something.

“The hell I am!” Ryuuko protests, and fuck, is this what embarrassing parents are like? She could've happily lived out her entire afterlife without experiencing this.

Kinagase is standing behind Mikisugi, arms folded over his chest and frowning severely at Kurosaki and Chad.

“Who are you?” He demands with the kind of authority that leads people to the mistaken conclusion that he's a serious person. But Ryuuko knows the truth: he and Mikisugi are part of the same ridiculous organization and Kinagase Tsumugu once launched his naked bare-ass self out of a canon at a COVERS warship, multiple times. Ryuuko will **never** forget that. Or let _him _forget it, for that matter.

Chad politely introduces himself but Kurosaki only scowls. Kinagase scowls back and the two of them just stand there, arms folded and scowling belligerently at each other.

“Kurosaki and Chad know Kisuke, so I figured they might know what to do.” Ryuuko explains, though it’s not much of an actual explanation.

At her words, Mikisugi staggers back a step, one hand pressed to his chest and the other groping blindly backwards towards Kinagase. “Can you _believe_, Tsumugu, that my own traitorous protege wouldn’t call _me_, her amazing sensei, in her time of need—”

“Oh my god, you’re so full of shit. What do you even know about this stuff! And I called you in the end, didn’t I?”

“—like some kind of _last resort_, Tsumugu!”

Kinagase looks just as long-suffering and patiently exasperated as Ryuuko feels, as Mikisugi throws his head back dramatically and stumbles like a Victorian era maiden in the midst of a fainting spell. He _looks_ like a drunken dumbass, but Ryuuko assumes that he was aiming for something a little classier.

“And I thought Geta-Boushi was bad,” Kurosaki mutters under his breath.

“Just be glad he kept all his clothes on this time,” Ryuuko mutters back. Kurosaki’s resulting expression is _gold_.

* * *

With Kisuke frustratingly off-grid (_AGAIN_), and for the continued lack of any obvious solution, Ryuuko just kind of… carries on. 

It’s nice, to be able to take down hollows with reliable backup. Kurosaki seems tireless and Sado has literally punched his way _through_ a hollow, so there’s nothing to worry about there. Blue sometimes joins in; he’s still not completely recovered, but after a week and a half of enforced bedrest, everyone in Honnouji unanimously decided that outside excursions were a must.

They’re still trying to repair two wings of the school, last that Ryuuko heard.

There’s been a slight uptick in the number of hollows that show up, but it keeps them from getting bored, so Ryuuko honestly doesn’t care.

According to Satsuki, there’s a group (a herd? a pack?) of hollows on the west side of town near the river, and Blue is antsy enough that they head there together.

Somehow, for some reason, Mako joins them.

“Mako, don’t you have class?”

Ryuuko loves spending time with her girlfriend, but—unless she’s missed something—said girlfriend isn’t really equipped to LARP Monster Hunter with her, Chad, and two irrevocable dumbasses.

“It’s okay, I let Satsuki-san know!” Ryuuko does not even want to _think_ about how that conversation might’ve gone. “And, Ryuuko-chan, I wanted t—”

“_Walk. **Faster**._” Blue snarls, hobbling along with blind focus. He probably shouldn’t be up, except he’s already dead and heals faster than humans do and no one can really _keep_ him in the infirmary since he keeps destroying walls. At any rate, Blue walks like a man determined and none of them have the heart to tell him that he’s going about as fast as a narcoleptic nonagenarian.

The hollows are grouped up near the dump, clearly having tracked something down, but there’s nothing in evidence. Most of them are biting and clawing at one another, because it turns out that when they’re not eating people, hollows are petty and kind of stupid.

Chad, who remains Ryuuko’s favorite, takes point. Taking point looks a lot like punching so hard that the air catches fire and slams into the nearest hollows like a messy, ghostly car crash.

Then there’s a lot of shrieking and cursing and even _more_ explosions, because Chad is actually the more conservative of them in terms of property damage.

Ryuuko and Senketsu are synchronized—they’re hardly ever _un_-synced these days—and tearing through whatever is in reach. Kurosaki is shooting giant beams of light-energy from his sword, because overkill is written into his very DNA.

Blue is…

Chad’s really the only human-shaped person that Ryuuko’s met that doesn’t have a sword. Kisuke has one, Kurosaki has one, _she_ has one and so does every other dead person that Ryuuko can think of.

Kurosaki started to bring it up once, but Blue _flipped his shit_ to the point where Ryuuko and Ira had to tag-team him into unconsciousness, so she doesn’t know what the story there is. Blue moves like someone who’s used to using a weapon, but doesn’t have one. That doesn’t seem to impede him much, given that he frequently rips hollows in half with his bare hands.

Whatever is going on with that, Ryuuko is just glad that Blue’s working frustrations out on hollows and not, you know, the town. The absolute last thing that Ryuuko wants is for some dumbass to give Satsuki a _reason_ to pick up Bakuzan.

All that aside, it’s both familiar and easy to fall into that place where she and Senketsu can see every line they need to sever, every swing they need to make. She’s peripherally keeping track of the others, and at one point a flash of something big and small blue-white streaks has her head jerking hard to the left—

Ryuuko doesn’t even really process it as thought, just lets her body move and she kicks the drooling, grinning hollow away from Mako even as she brings Senketsu down in a pair of strikes that carve parallel lines into its mask. The hollow shrieks, wordless and furious, even as it dissipates, leaving behind dust.

It’s all very dramatic, or whatever, but Ryuuko has other things she’s far more concerned about.

“Mako!” Ryuuko’s heart is pounding in her chest, and either she’s shaking or the world is. “Are you okay?”

The dust finally clears to show Mako, uniform a little dusty but not visibly injured.

“I’m fine, Ryuuko-chan, that’s—”

Ryuuko has her hands on Mako’s shoulders, frantically checking for scratches, bruises, cuts, _anything_. The hollow’s already dead and gone but damn it, if Mako has so much as a _paper-cut_, she’ll kill it again!

“You’re not hurt?”

Mako smiles, winningly.

“Nope! I’m okay, c—”

“Mako,” Ryuuko’s frantic energy leaves her all at once and she nearly drags them both to the ground. “Mako, you gotta be careful.”

She takes Mako’s hand in her own to emphasize the seriousness of the situation and of her request. There are still more hollows to take care of, but Kurosaki and Chad and Blue should have it well in hand.

Mako smiles even wider, if possible, and she quickly cups Ryuuko’s face with one hand.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Ryuuko-chan!”

And then she pivots on her heel and slams the hollow—the hollow that had been sneaking up behind them, the hollow that Ryuuko didn’t notice, the hollow, there’s a _hollow_—into the ground with an enormous red kanabo. With what looks like the same effort someone would put into waving away a particularly persistent mosquito.

Ryuuko is caught somewhere between loud, blank confusion and swooning.

“Oh, come the fuck on.” Kurosaki shouts from across the street. When Ryuuko shoots a glance in his direction, he has his arms thrown up in complete exaggeration, even as he and the other two begin to make their way over.

“Mako,” Ryuuko says dumbly, her mind still stuck on _giant red kanabo_ and _hollow almost ate my girlfriend_ and _GIANT RED KANABO_. It takes a moment for her brain to reboot. “Mako, how long have you been able to do that?”

Mako’s got her mouth open to answer just as something utterly _horrifying_ crosses Ryuuko’s mind.

“This isn’t like that time with Satsuki’s shitty Goku Uniforms, right? You’re not, like, Life Fiber Possessed or something?”

(“What the hell is your_ life_,” Kurosaki asks under his breath.)

“No, I think it’s okay,” Mako reassures her. “Since…. Weeeeeell, it’s really only been since Angry Cat-san showed up—”

“Stop _calling_ me that, goddamnit—”

“Wait,” Kurosaki cuts in. He turns to his right. “Chad, how does this _not_ surprise you?”

Chad shrugs one shoulder, blinking down—and down and down—at Mako through his hair. She blinks back up at him, and gives a little wave. “I got my powers from you the same way, didn’t I?”

“Are you saying Mako got _my_ powers?” Ryuuko’s stomach flips. “Are they gonna hurt her?”

“Uh, it _should_ be fine?” Kurosaki scratches the back of his neck, looking a little awkward, like he’s not used to offering non-violent solutions to problems. “Chad and Inoue didn’t get _my_ powers, just powers that are kinda… based off mine?”

Mako, Ryuuko notes, has yet to stop smiling. If the situation wasn’t the equivalent of a brick to the face, Ryuuko would probably appreciate it more.

“Does that make the kanabo like some kinda zanpakutou—?”

Mako leans forward, clearly having been waiting for this moment.

“This is Gashadokuro! She’s a big, red Oni and she loves croquettes and she has these cool, huge horns that go like _swoosh_, and she showed me this move where you spin around really fast, all _swoo swoo swoo_ and then your enemy _explodes_ when you hit ‘em and—”

Mako is smiling so hard and talking so fast that Ryuuko can barely keep up.

“—we’ve been practicing!” Mako finally pauses to take a breath, hefting the kanabo with a little flourish.

“Mako, that’s _amazing_!” Ryuuko knows she’s gushing, okay? But her girlfriend is amazing and has _powers_ now, which is abstractly horrific considering how much damage she was able to do while only mildly possessed.

“Hey, uh, Matoi?”

“Wait a sec,” Ryuuko throws over her shoulder without looking. “Mako, what all did Gashadokuro teach you? Maybe she and Senketsu can come up with combos—”

“Matoi.” Kurosaki raises his voice a little, like he thinks Ryuuko hadn’t heard him.

“Can you wait a second?” Ryuuko snaps.

“_Turn the fuck around_, jackass,” Blue hisses.

Ryuuko turns around, not because Blue told her to, but so that she can curse him out. Do they not see her talking to her girlfriend about _important_ future sparring dates? But then, she actually _turns_, eyes seeking out the others and—

Oh.

Most of the hollows are dead and dissolving, because Ryuuko does good work, and the others do no less, Mako now included. Except…

Except there’s one last hollow. That hollow. The one Ryuuko had mistaken for a mound of garbage. The one that just stood up to its full height of _How The Fuck_.

That enormous—and judging by the look in its eyes, ravenous—hollow.

“Ryuuko-chan, let’s smash it!” Mako’s eyes are filled with a bloodthirsty fire. That’s not new, exactly, but now she at least has an overpowered (not that any of them can talk) spirit weapon to fight with. Her smashing is probably going to be a lot more literal from this point.

“Let’s not,” Kurosaki offers, his own sword still sheathed on his back. “Menos Grande are a pain in the ass.”

“Ryuuko-chan, _let’s smash it!_” Mako repeats, undeterred.

“She’s gonna go, with or without you,” Ryuuko warns Kurosaki, who lets his face fall into his open palm with a muffled curse.

The last hollow—the biggest hollow that Ryuuko has ever seen—tires of them just standing and talking instead of quivering in fear or whatever, and makes its displeasure known as it bellows and then shoots a giant ball of energy from its mask right at them. Immediately, the five of them all kick off from the tarmac and let the beam pass between them, where it slams into the road and kicks up loose gravel.

That kind of flashy, straight-forward attack is generally what Ryuuko has come to expect from hollows. They really are the same, no matter how small or… un-small.

(Why do hollows even _grow_ this big?)

What Ryuuko is not expecting, however, is for Blue to scoff and step forward through the drifting dust. She’s also not expecting it when he opens his own mouth into a sneer. Or when bright, blue-white energy to build up, humming exactly like the hollow’s had. Or for that energy to suddenly compress itself and for Blue to rear back and roar as the energy propels itself forward and those are hollow powers, why the hell does Blue have hollow powers, is that a thing—?

Amid the falling chunks of hollow gore, interspersed with pieces of literal garbage, Ryuuko orients herself so that she can glare at Kurosaki and Blue at the same time.

“_What th**e fUCK**_—”

* * *

“I honestly can’t say this is a problem I thought I’d ever have,” Ryuuko breaks the weird silent tension like hammer to glass. There’s a time for tact and finess, but Ryuuko refuses to let this clusterfuck be one such time.

Blue—whose name is something long and pointy sounding, and which Ryuuko summarily forgets every time she hears it—snorts. It turns out that he’s _not_ a shinigami, but actually a hollow that has shinigami powers. Which—

“How does that make him _not_ a shinigami?” Ryuuko demands. “And how come he looks human?”

Kurosaki scowls, but that’s nothing new. “Look, I’m just telling you what _I_ know. He has a zanpakutou and what’s basically shikai but he was a hollow first, so I guess it’s different. He… evolved or something, I dunno.”

“He is also sitting right fuckin’ here,” Blue mutters under his breath. Mako consolingly offeres him an apple slice, which he takes, albeit with an eye-roll.

The infirmary really isn’t meant to have this many people in one little section, but Blue was wrung out and Ryuuko has _questions_, okay.

“Ichigo,” Chad speaks up from where he’d been quietly observing from the corner. “There’s also…”

He trails off, but Kurosaki obviously knows what Chad was alluding to, because he makes a face and then huffs out a big sigh.

“There’s a whole dumb process involved, but it kinda goes both ways.” He jabs a thumb between Chad and his own chest, daring. “Chad’s got hollow powers. I got shinigami powers _and_ hollow powers.”

He’s got his back straight but his legs bent and his jaw jutting out. What, does he think she’s gonna attack him?

“But you’re not a hollow. They’re supposed to be like… weird animals, right?”

Her non-reaction makes something in Kurosaki’s bravado deflate and he runs a hand through his hair. “I did say _kinda_.”

“And that stupid rock could do all that?” Ryuuko wonders, thinking back. Even then, when she knew next to nothing, she’d been able to tell that something was _wrong_ about Aizen’s power. She remembers the pulse of it, spread under skin like a strangling vine, a mass of _something_ sitting dead center in Aizen’s chest.

“I guess I kinda get it,” Ryuuko allows. “But where does Blue fit in? And all those other people?”

“My name’s not fuckin’ _Blue_—”

“Aizen was making an Espada army.” Kurosaki doesn’t raise his voice, but talks over Blue all the same. The ‘Espada’ (whatever that means) hisses like an angry tea kettle. Mako hands him another apple slice.

“So Kisuke had the rock and tried to hide it. But Aizen found his own rock anyway and made an army at some point and then just shoved both rocks together and stuck ‘em into his chest.” It’s a neat enough summary of events. Both Kurosaki and Chad nod.

“And the rock could give a shinigami hollow powers and a hollow shinigami powers, sure, but like,” Ryuuko searches for the right words and comes up short. “What the hell _was_ it?”

There’s a pause.

“What do you mean?” Kurosaki sounds leery, like Ryuuko’s trying to lead him into a trap. As if Ryuuko has the patience for that kind of cloak-and-dagger cat-and-mouse bullshit. She’ll gladly leave that to Satsuki.

“I mean, did Kisuke _make_ it or—?” Ryuuko makes a broad gesture, swinging her arms out. “If he could just give people extra powers, why did he make it a rock?”

Kurosaki rubs the back of his head, eyebrows furrowed in thought. It looks like it’s something he never considered, and that alone tells Ryuuko that she’s gotten off easy as far as the Absurd Bullshit scale goes.

“Dunno about your guy, but I know where that Aizen fucker got _his_ from,” Blue announces, with an overly-casual air. It would have more effect if he wasn’t lying prone and eating apple slices carved into hearts.

Another pause.

“Are you gonna tell us, Angry Cat-san—?”

“_Don’t fuckin’ **call** me_—”

Blue snarls out a sound that probably shouldn’t be able to come out of a throat shaped like that, but Mako only gives him a stern look. And another apple slice.

Blue kisses his teeth in annoyance, but takes the slice and leans back. It’s a little hard to take someone seriously when they’re chomping on fruit like it did them a personal wrong, but Ryuuko should definitely _not_ laugh. Blue already challenges her to enough fights as it is.

“Aizen got his Hougyouku from Hueco Mundo,” Blue says around the last bite of apple, dropping all pretense and theatrics.

“_From_ Hueco Mundo?” Chad and Ichigo say at the same time.

“He didn’t have it when he first showed up,” Blue deigns to explain. He sneers, but whether it’s at the thought of Aizen or if it’s in response to Kurosaki’s default scowl, Ryuuko couldn’t say. “But he definitely didn’t _bring_ it from anywhere. Just kinda showed up with it one day.” 

It makes a kind of sense, Ryuuko has to admit. If both Kisuke and Aizen had discovered how to just do all that mad science shit on their own, it definitely wouldn’t have turned into a hundred year grudge match. However, there’s also the idle thought that all of this—or at least most of it, and definitely the parts relevant to her—started because Aizen and Kisuke’s dumb asses picked something shiny up off the ground.

“Maybe Kisuke got his from Seireitei?” Ryuuko offers. From what she understands, the two Hyouguki-thingies had the same powers but weren’t the same _thing_. Until Aizen slammed them together and then _stuck them in his ches_t. Ryuuko seriously can’t get over that, because it just seems… incredibly stupid. And creepy. Who _does_ shit like that?

“I wanna know exactly where Aizen got _his_ from. If there’s just some place in Hueco Mundo full of Hougyouku ether or something…” Kurosaki cuts himself with a grumble. “One hopped up jackass is enough. If there are more of those things just lying around, I’m gonna smash ‘em.”

Now _that’s_ a plan Ryuuko can get behind. By the grin on her face, Mako agrees.

“So let’s go to Wakey-Moon-whatever-the-hell and smash ‘em,” Ryuuko suggests.

“You’re just gonna waltz into Hueco Mundo,” Blue cuts in, flat and disbelieving, before Kurosaki can even respond. “_You two_.”

There’s a wealth of derision there, but Ryuuko flaps a hand in his direction, dismissive. “Then come with us so we don’t break something important.”

Blue stares at her. Ryuuko stares back, eyebrow raised. Blue lets his head fall back onto the pillow as he groans up at the ceiling, puts his hand over his face and then—after a good five minutes—lets out the deepest, most exasperated sigh Ryuuko has ever heard a person make.

“Fuck’s sake,” Blue says, from underneath his own palm.

That’s basically a _yes_, Ryuuko decides.

**Author's Note:**

> the infamous herding cats part of hey, fashion disaster!
> 
> i basically take hey, fashion disaster verse, shake it really hard and then shoot nerf darts at whatever comes out


End file.
